Archive for the 'writing' Category

some radvents

Published on December 15, 2010 in bluishorange, childhood and writing. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Day 11: What is your personal dream? What would happen if your dream came true?

I’ve got a personal dream I’m working towards right now! But I’m afraid to tell you what it is because I’ll feel super dumb if it doesn’t work out. So I guess the second question I’m going to answer instead is, “What would happen if you told the internet about it?

Fear of failure has been a pretty serious thing in my life. It’s why I almost always take the easiest path, it’s why I never try anything new unless the stakes are really low. But I’ve been attempting to get over that this year, and I have plans to barrel through the fear in 2011 too. Still, though, I’m afraid that if I tell the internet, it’ll jinx it. Well, I don’t believe in jinxing. I do believe that if I tell the internet, I’ll feel dumb if it doesn’t end up happening.

Conquering fear of failure? Going okay. Conquering fear of feeling dumb in front of the internet? Not going okay. Eh, I can live with it.

Day 13: Have you ever just quit something… without regret?

Yes! I had a professional blogging gig once, about the paranormal. It was interesting when I started, but two posts a week about something I didn’t believe in began to get tedious. Posts were due on Friday mornings, so I spent every Thursday night doing lots of procrastinating and bitching and moaning, and a little bit of writing. The only original post ideas I had were things I’d heard about here in Texas, which was fine, but then the head of the site told my fellow bloggers and me that we were writing too many things about Texas. After that I had no ideas.

When our contracts were up and we were each asked whether or not we wanted to continue, I barely wasted half a second before saying no thanks, and then I spent the next two Thursday nights telling everyone how great it was to NOT WRITE ABOUT THE PARANORMAL!!!!!!

Note: I have nothing bad to say about anyone I worked with or for at that site; it was just a bad fit subject-wise, and I should have realized that beforehand.

Day 14: Did you like to read as a child? Do you read more or less now?

Oh, I read like the wind. I taught myself to read at an early age, so once I hit elementary school I was reading ahead of everyone else. The teacher had to give me a special pass to the sections of the library for the older grades so I could pick books from there. I’ve heard friends talk about feeling singled out or ostracized when this happened to them as kids, and I definitely felt that in other aspects of my childhood.

But the reading pass made me feel special. While all my other classmates were at their desks, I’d walk down the hall and give the librarian my pass. Then I’d go back to the 5th grade shelves and choose whatever books I wanted. The library was always deserted when I went, so I could sit down on the floor and look through the books in silence. It was neat.

At some point my mother realized she could use my love of reading to her advantage. Anytime I was bothering her, she’d say, “Why don’t you go read a book or something?” When I figured out that that was her clever way of dismissing me, I started saying, “I don’t want to!” even if I did. What a brat I was.

didn’t you used to be bluishorange

Published on January 7, 2009 in best of, bluishorange and writing. 8 Comments Tags: , , .

It comes as no surprise to me that it is Ernie Hsiung who has said exactly how I feel about this website right now.  After all, our websites grew up together:

In another world and time, 8Asians.com would have no ads and would be similar to what my blog used to be – completely ad free.

What killed this?  Jealousy.  Jealousy in that you see other people around you doing similar stuff, and then you meet them at parties or social gatherings and they’re like, “I just booked a sponsor for $1,000 and I’m going to hang out in Asia for a week [true]” or “I just scored a sweet book deal with Random House and I’m only 20! [also true]”  And you think your self, “girl, you’re like twelve years younger than me.  Where’s my thousand bucks and book deal?”

And then you realize to your horror that you had a pretty successful site that has been around for years, and apart from random strangers recognizing you from Florida you don’t really have anything to show for it, besides your dad pissed that you’ve written about his business for the Internet to see.  If my dad is going to be pissed at me, I might as well cash out from it.

Maybe that will change if I suddenly get laid off or fired, and free time is ample; but I feel like as I’m getting older I’m less creative, less funny and instead of having kids or a partner to spend it with, here I am, trying to do the hustle.

I don’t technically think that I have NOTHING to show for this website. It’s gotten me friends and dates and jobs and skills and experiences I wouldn’t have had otherwise.  But sometimes I look at the nearly nine years of writing and photos and miscellany I’ve put on this site and think, WHERE HAS IT GOTTEN ME, REALLY.

I’m currently dating a guy who doesn’t read my website. At all. Has never been to my website as far as I know. Doesn’t follow me on Twitter. Doesn’t look at my photos on Flickr. Doesn’t read my secret LiveJournal. And you know what? It’s nice. He’s the first guy I’ve dated in a long time who didn’t fall for me on the internet first.

The other night I was telling him some story or other about myself, one of those stories I almost always tell to people I’m getting to know. I was halfway through when I realized that in the weeks I’ve known this guy, I’ve never, EVER needed to preface a story with “I wrote about this on my website at some point,” and watch for his reaction to see if he remembers reading it so I can tell the short version, the way I’ve done with so many people over the years.

It’s nice, is all.

uh, what?

Published on October 9, 2008 in bluishorange, lists and writing. 9 Comments Tags: , .

I sent an e-mail to my friend B the other day about how I’ve been having trouble focusing on things that require thought and effort.  The fault lies with the internet and television, to be sure, but let’s not get into all that right now.  The problem itself is that I can sit down and write jokey e-mails to friends, or post little things in my LiveJournal, but when it comes to the sort of substantive writing that requires critical thought, I’m woefully inadequate these days.  As is my custom*, I’m going to make a list of things I’d write about had I the mental capacity:

1. I’m moving to a new apartment.  It’s closer to downtown, it was built in the fifties, and it’s prettier, though more expensive, than my current place.  There’s more light, too.

I’ve got this weird thing going on with my current apartment where work is a 20-minute drive away in one direction, and most of my friends are a 20-minute drive away in the other.  This wouldn’t be too much of a problem (though I’d rather not have to drive AT ALL), except for the fact that the 20-minute drives home from my friends’ area of town occur late at night, which is not exactly a good time to be driving home.  More weekends than not I spend at least one night sleeping on someone’s futon so I don’t have to drive all the way home.

This new place is ten minutes closer to my friends’ area of town.  In one week I’d estimate that I drive to that area and to work an equal number of times, so I’m going to use the same amount of gas I do now on that front.  The bonus is that my new apartment is in a highly walkable area (71 out of 100!), which means I’ll be able to walk or ride my bike to coffeehouses and restaurants and the pharmacy and so forth.

There is no 2. because I’m bored now.

*One of my favorite little oft-used phrases in The Floating Opera, about which Orville Prescott said this:

Nevertheless, “The Floating Opera” isn’t anywhere near funny enough to make up for its grievous faults. Most of this odd novel is dull. Most of its humor is labored and flat. Some of its heavy-handed attempts to shock seem cheap in a juvenile and nasty way rather than sophisticated or realistic, as they probably were intended.

So, uh, fuck that guy.

…

Published on October 6, 2008 in bluishorange and writing. 2 Comments Tags: .

I have too much to say and too little to say all at once.

on uplifiting topics

Published on September 15, 2008 in best of, bluishorange, depression and writing. 13 Comments Tags: , , , .

We were lying in bed together in 2005, talking in both generalities and specifics about depression.  I talked about mine, he talked about his friend T’s, and then he told me about T’s suicide.

“Listen,” he said to me.  “No matter how depressed you get, please don’t kill yourself.  It’s the most selfish thing anyone can ever do.  T killed himself without thinking about how his friends and family would feel after he left.  I was so angry.  I’m still angry.  Don’t ever kill yourself.”

It was the first thing he said to me that made me wonder if we maybe weren’t right for each other.  It made me think he didn’t really understand the nature of depression.  It made me think, there is nobody on this earth who, when faced with the kind of depression that makes one want to commit suicide, would decide to stick around because they wouldn’t want their friends to think them selfish or because they thought suicide might mean that they’re a failure.

“Okay,” I said.  What else could I have said to my boyfriend?  The truth?

“The truth is that I’ve thought about suicide before.”

“The truth is that it’s technically impossible for me to give you a guarantee that I won’t ever kill myself.”

I’ve read The Broom of the System, half of Girl With Curious Hair, and about 1/50th of Infinite Jest, and I plan to try the latter again soon.  On the occasion of David Foster Wallace’s suicide, I’ve been reading the Metafilter thread about him.  Someone posted this, an excerpt from Infinte Jest:

The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

He’s right, you know.  I understand why suicide feels like a selfish act to the loved ones who are left behind, but it isn’t.  Depression is a disease just like any other–its effects are no more a choice than the effects of other chronic illnesses, and its sufferers don’t relish the prospect of death.

I’m sorry to see you go, David Foster Wallace, but it’s okay with me if you’re not sorry.

i guess that makes me an old (blogging) woman

Published on August 29, 2008 in bluishorange and writing. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Back in the day, I used to write a lot of really personal things on this site. I would talk about how I felt about everything–my job, my friends, my relationships–and for the most part I felt safe doing that without fear that anything bad would happen as a result. As I’m sure you can tell, that’s changed quite a bit. I’m older now, and my interest in things like job security and my friends’ privacy and my own privacy has trumped my desire to write freely and publicly online.

But.

While I’m satisfied with my decision to hold more things back on bluishorange, my desire to write freely online (even if it can’t be public) hasn’t changed. To that end, I set up a friends-only LiveJournal page, where I can talk about work and relationships and all the things I can’t talk about here, and only the people I want to read it can read it.

I’ve had my friends-only LiveJournal for less than a week, and I’ve already posted on it five times. Five times! That’s more than I post on bluishorange in a month! The knowledge that what I write won’t be publicly available has opened a writing floodgate, and everything I wish I could still write here has come pouring out over there. I love it.

In that way, my private LiveJournal feels like bluishorange used to feel–it’s a place where I can write about whatever I want, and my friends will read it and leave comments about it. And that’s the other thing that’s happened: the LiveJournal comments feel like old-school bluishorange, too. My friends leave comments, and I respond, and then someone else responds, and a discussion evolves.

Matt Haughey posted about how the comments on current blogs don’t have a living-room feel like they used to, and I know exactly what he’s talking about. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed all my old comments until my private LiveJournal came along.

Wednesday night I had dinner with my sister, and then she came over for a bit. After she left, I went straight to my LiveJournal and wrote this:

When I was a kid, my mother always told me that I’d appreciate my little sister when I got older. Maybe I didn’t like her now–she was always chewing with her mouth open, taking up space in the bathroom, and weighing in on my teen years in a derogatory fashion–but I’d like her when we were grown up. I didn’t believe her at ALL. There was no way I was ever going to like Megan. She got mad when I ate all the jelly beans and she made fun of me when I took too much time in the bathroom and she was always trying to watch TV when I wanted to watch TV and it didn’t matter that we wanted to watch the same things because she was annoying me just sitting there on the other couch and I could HEAR HER BREATHING and dammit, why couldn’t I be an only child?

But of course my mother was right, and now that I’m 30 you couldn’t pay me to be an only child. If I were an only child, who would I compare notes with on what our parents were like when we were kids? Who would laugh at all my jokes? Who would listen to whatever bullshit I was talking about (no matter how much wine I had with dinner) and tell me about everything she was going through, no matter if either one of us made sense or not? Who would remember what we were talking about before I segued awkwardly into a dumb story about my dog’s teeth, and then bring up the fact that before we were talking about my dog’s teeth, she was telling me about her internship in Houston, and then I can say, oh, yeah, you were saying that your boss said [this] and then you said [this] and I can definitely see why you felt that way, tell me more?

Yeah, there’s nobody like that.

I cannot think of a better way to spend a Wednesday night than having sushi and wine with Megan. Screw you for going to Brazil for two months, Megan! Who’s going to be my sister while you’re gone? If you don’t move back to Austin when you get back I’m going to disown you.

My friend Peter left a comment that said:

Now you’re beginning to cross over to posts you could probably post on your blog with little or no revision. Welcome to the slippery slope that is LiveJournal.

He’s totally right. What’s happening here is this: I feel really comfortable writing on my LiveJournal, so it’s making me want to write more, and so I do; I write about whatever I feel like saying whether it needs to be kept private or not. And then the LiveJournal becomes less about privacy and more about audience, or general effort-making, or the value of non-editing, or something. I’ll have to think more about this.

Update: It’s probably about the value of not trying too hard.